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How has climate change killed 16,000 people in Spain?

Thousands of people died during the heatwave of 2003 in Spain

Extreme climatic phenomena such as floods, storms and heatwaves have left their mark on the population of Europe over the last 40 years, claiming the lives of a staggering 142,000 people. Spain hasn’t escaped this carnage, and during the scorching spell in 2003 when temperatures climbed into the 40s, almost 13,000 people lost their lives.

In fact, 85% of the excess deaths recorded between 1981 and 2020 have been caused by extreme heat, and the 2003 heatwave in Spain accounted for between 50% and 75% of all climate-related fatalities in the last four decades.

According to the World Meteorological Organisation, “the number of climate-related disasters has increased globally in the last 50 years, causing more damage but fewer deaths,” due mainly to the improvement of early warning signals and disaster management.

Now read: Seville will be the first city in the world to name heatwaves

While the loss of human life is of course the most tragic aspect of climatic disasters, the cost to the public coffers can’t be ignored. Across Europe, the bill has exceeded half a billion euros over the last 40 years, with Spain racking up a debt of 60,976 million.

The number of adverse events has increased exponentially as the decades have ticked by, and the impact of these phenomena, which experts warn will certainly continue to rise due to climate change, are being closely monitored around the world so that governments can “minimise damage and loss of human life.”

With the situation likely to get much worse before it gets better, the European Environment Agency (EEA) is scrambling to find solutions, one of which is increasing insurance coverage, particularly in countries such as Lithuania and Romania, to mitigate the enormous expenses incurred.

In addition, “adopting climate measures in line with a scenario of a temperature increase of 1.5°C instead of 3°C could avoid up to 60,000 deaths per year due to heatwaves and prevent losses due to drought of 20,000 million euros per year by the end of this century", according to the EEA.

See also: Spain prepares climate shelters to protect against heatwaves

Image 1: Archive

Image 2: European Environment Agency

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